Sunday, July 4, 1976

Game 26: Toyota 119, Crispa 115 (July 4, 1976)

Toyota overcame the lost of five
players because of six personal fouls and stunned Crispa in Game 1 of
the 1976 PBA All-Filipino Conference finals. The Comets took the
series opener despite trailing by 12 points in the third quarter.

Toyota wins, 119 to 115

By Ding Marcelo

Bulletin Today

Published Monday July 5, 1976

Toyota lost five men on fouls and then
while the jampacked crowd gasped in intense anticipation, a pair of
over-the-hill campaigners delivered the bombs that gave the Comets a
119-115 victory over the Crispa Redmanizers and a 1-0 lead in their
best-of-five series for the All-Filipino PBA conference championship
at the Araneta Coliseum.

Durable Joaquin Rojas, Jr., in the
twilight of a storied career, and Rolando Marcelo, vainly seeking the
form that catapulted him into prominence many years ago, scored
back-to-back hits when it most mattered, putting Toyota ahead,
119-113, and on top of their arch-rivals whom they have now beaten
three straight times.

Half of the story was carved on the
foul throw line where Crispa ignominiously missed six shots in the
last five minutes, four of them by the usually unerring Fortunato Co,
and the star of the banned film “Uhaw...” will never probably
lived down those misses.

The Redmanizers, who themselves
reported minus the services of the fiery Bernardo Fabiosa and Philip
Cezar who is serving the first of a three-game suspension for
punching Comet Ramon Fernandez in the Crispa-Toyota match last
Thursday, played with magnificence of a team seeking to correct a
tarnished image.

They led by 12 points twice, the last
time at 67-55 in the first minute of the third quarter, but the
inching, fighting, clawing Comets, playing with tremendous courage,
pulled ahead for the first time in the game during the final quarter,
93-92, to erase a third quarter 88-92 deficit on five straight
baskets by Francis Arnaiz, Orlando Bauzon and Fernandez.

The lead changed hands 12 times after
that before Aurelio Clarino connected, the hit preceding four
straight foul throw misses by Crispa, two each by Alfredo Hubalde and
Co, that put Toyota ominously ahead by three, 109-106.

Two successive hits by Arnaiz,
sandwiched a five-point production by Co and William Adornado,
113-111. And when Crispa took a chance to level on the next play on
Arnaiz's sixth foul, Co again missed two free throws.

“The opportunity for the win
presented itself many times,” said a dejected Crispa mentor Baby
Dalupan. “but the boys failed to parlay it into points.”

And he went on to cite the bad free
throws although he expressed sadness at missing Fabiosa who is under
observation for a suspected bum knee.

The rugged contest produced a total of
76 fouls, 42 by Toyota including six each by Fernandez, Jaworski,
Segura, Clarino and Arnaiz who fouled out just a few minutes of each
other.

With only 28 seconds left, when coach
Dante Silverio had no one to turn to in place of Arnaiz who fouled
out last among the five, he picked Gil Cortez, sidelined as early as
the first quarter due to bad fall that caused his right knee to
swell.

Cortez, unable to run and grimacing in
extreme pain with each move, stood motionless in the Crispa front
court while his teammates ran out the seconds to clinch the victory.

It was as if “El Cid” was
reincarnated as his presence on the court, his knee bandaged, was too
much for even the most diehard Crispa fan to ignore. One simply had
to symphatize with him – and his team.

Coach Silverio praised his boys “for
their unsurpassed fighting spirit” and said that despite being
ahead, “ there is no guarantee that we will be champion. Crispa is
a very hard team to beat.”

Even as jubilation swept the Toyota
dugout, Adornado was banging his fists into the dressing room wall,
unable to contain his dejection while his teammates watched in
symphathy including Rey Franco who was thrown out for kicking
Fernandez during a rebound scuffle midway in the third quarter.

The Redmanizers felt aggrieved that no
can was made some seconds earlier when Rodolfo Segura threw what
looked like a deliberate elbow at Tito Varela who came out of the
match with bleeding mouth.

Fernandez led the Toyota production
with 28, followed closely by Arnaiz with 27. Adornado scored a
game-high 31 points while Co added 24.